Photography News Issue 62

Camera test 32

Photography News | Issue 62 | photographynews.co.uk

The GFX 50R offers the option of shooting different aspect ratios

I had the GFX 50R over a long weekend and I was impressed with thebattery life. Oneachday I got over 500 pictures, many taken with the live view monitor. I shot exposure brackets, focus brackets, ISO sets and series of continuous sequence shooting. I used the electronic and mechanical shutters in about equal measure and in between there was picture reviewing and general menu tweaking. On two of the three days I had two out of the five bars showing and on the other day I got down to one bar, which is roughly 20% power left. Getting a spare (£119 each) is advised, but that is good capacity nonetheless. Also, to be fair, I was only shooting that many frames in a day because I was testing the camera. Just a final thing on reliability. I had one very wet day with the GFX 50R, but with the camera and lenses weather-proofed I had no issues with reliability despite the kit getting thoroughly soaked.

The GFX 50R offers the option of shooting different aspect ratios, including 1:1 and 65:24 panoramic. Of course you can crop to your preferred size in editing afterwards, but shooting to the format in-camera is a great discipline and makes you work harder than thinking ‘oh, I’ll sort it later in post’. The GFX 50R also has the option to shoot 35mm format. Set auto and you get 35mm shots automatically with a suitable lens adapter. File sizes of 35mm images are around 32MB as opposed to the 50MB of a full compressed GFX Raw. With an image size of 6768x4512pixels – that’s a resolution of 30.5 megapixels – that’s still big enough for 22.5x15in prints at 300ppi. With the growing number of adapters – with varying degrees of compatibility – the potential of using 35mm format and other medium format lenses on the GFX 50R will no doubt prove interesting to many prospective owners. The Fujifilm GFX 50R is a lovely camera and I really enjoyed using it. It has character and the odd quirk, but that is probably true of every medium format camera I’ve ever used and there was nothing here I considered a deal breaker. On the contrary, the more I used it the more I loved it, and once I started processing the Raws and making prints its appeal grew exponentially. Medium format is always going to be minority interest but I can see the GFX 50R having a relatively wide appeal and £4k, while still a great deal of money, in medium format terms is affordable. Of course you need to factor in the cost of lenses, but at around £5400 with the 63mm f/2.8 lens and a spare battery, it’s appealing to pros and enthusiasts alike. Huge set-up potential and lovely sensor Handling  21/25 A more ergonomic handgrip and the odd control in a bigger size would be good, but no real issues Performance 24/25 It delivers superb images even at high ISOs Value for money 23/25 Medium format for £4k is a bargain Overall 92/100 If you’re serious about image quality with portability, the GFX 50R could be for you Pros Image quality, good price Cons Some aspects of handling and control design could be even better Verdict Features  24/25

Performance: Focus bracketing

Stacked

Start

Final

Images This fungi scene was done with 50 focus-bracketed images, which were merged in Affinity Photo software. The exposure was 1/105sec at f/5.6 and ISO 400 with the 120mmmacro lens and the GFX 50Rmounted on a Gitzo Systematic series 4 tripod.

The GFX 50R joins the increasing number of cameras offering focus stacking, which will appeal to scenic and macro shooters. The focus bracket setting is found in the drive menu while setting number of frames, distance gaps and time intervals is found in the main menu. It’s possible to shoot 999 frames with distance intervals of 1 through to 10. Gaps are arbitrary – 10being thewidest.

To test the feature’s mettle I shot close-up and landscape scenes with the 120mm lens set to f/4. With the need for a stable base the camera was fixed on a Gitzo Systematic 4 series carbon-fibre tripod, I used touch focus on the nearest part of the scene and then set up the bracket menu. I set 50 exposures and a focus gap of 5 as a starting point, and then

the electronic shutter – no point wearing out the mechanical one. Focus is automatically adjusted from front to back and stops if infinity is reached before the set number of frames, so setting a high number is not an issue. Push the shutter release and the camera gets to work with the number of frames shot and the total shown on the monitor, so you have an idea of progress.

It is worth thinking about file format for focus stacking. I had Raw and super JPEG set and with 50 shots the camera got to 25 or so quickly and then progress slowed down to about one frame a second due to buffering. With a stable camera and a static subject essential for focus stacking this isn’t a problem but you need to consider the chance of changing light.

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